Coming out of my Silence
I hadn’t planned to do this.
Long time readers of my old blog will know that many years ago I pulled away from this medium entirely. It began when I created a site called “Ad Free Blog” because I believed that the enslaught of advertising into the blogosphere would have ruinous consequences, and completely erode trust in the medium, (and I believe whole heartedly that it did, and still does). Because of “Ad Free Blog” I was attacked online and in advertising magazines, and later trolled nearly constantly. I began to see the tone of the internet slowly changing from a place of camaraderie and creativity, into a space of vitriol and anonymous attacks. Jaron Lanier talks about the concept of ‘wolf mentalities’ to explain why this happens. What was once a creative outlet for me began to feel sad and broken. And so somewhere around 2014 I left.
For the past few years I have been researching exactly why the internet has become a toxic space. I have read nearly every book on the topic and come up with some of my own theories. The answer is part of a larger cultural problem, one that while not impossible, requires some major changes in the how the culture operates. This is no easy task. But I do have some ideas which I am putting into a new book. Something different. Something more personal than I have done before. (More on that later).
I am not going to get into all of it here, because there is way too much to write, I will give you a few of my thoughts, the tip of the iceberg really.
I believe that as a culture we are way too focused on producing. We must be constantly productive in all areas of life, (work, health, personal, social). Because we live in a society dominated by consumerism our private lives have turned into something that is to be “produced” and “performed”. There is no longer any aspect our our lives that are not up for consumption by others. This level of consumption leaves us empty and depressed. Every aspect of our lives revolves around consumerist thinking, branding, packaging, and promoting. While it is easy to think this process is creative, it is not. We are caught in a loop of sameness, reproducing only what we see works for others. What the philosopher Byung Chul-Han calls the “hell of sameness”.
On top of it we have become completely addicted to the cult of the new, news feeds that offer us an endless stream of information. Time becomes a non-stop feed of news, and we rush to seek out the new surprise. No sense of pause. No end to the scrolling. No sense of completion. No time to contemplate what we have seen. No ability to place it into history. Just an abundance of bits and pieces, tied to nothing and offering no nutrients.
All of this leaves us distracted, unfullfilled, empty, and disconnected with reality. We have lost touch with the fact that this medium, these technologies are just tools, things to help us, not things that should be dominating our entire day. Human beings are meant to use technology for their own ends, not the other way around. We are now being used for constant data mining, the technology designed to keep you on it so that companies can extract as much data as possible and sell it for profit.. We are no longer in control of it. And it is damaging us beyond belief. I don’t think I need to write about how much it is harming younger people especially. There has been a lot written about that already.
The solution for me was to become a cultural renegade. To pull out. Not completely. But I needed to ground myself in what was real for a larger portion of time. I needed to touch things that have molecules and atoms, rocks and leaves. I needed to spend time making things with my hands and feeling that sense of completion. I needed to provide space for long periods of contemplation, write in longhand, hear the scraping of the pen across the page. I sank into the formation of letters made with ink and felt the sensation of having a sense of individual agency over most of the aspects of my existence. This sense that comes form making things from nothing. Sewing journals, carving wood, making ink, using brushes. For me part of this process involves extensive reading of philosophy, to go to the minds of others who were also involved in the act of deep thinking, deep looking, deep listening. I needed to combat all of the negative effects that the current culture was imposing on me, without my permission. I needed to rebuild my trust sensors. Our internal trust sensors become damaged and confused in a world that confuses art and creativity with the sale of goods. An instagram feed by a ‘friend’ who is sponsored by an earbud company throws this trust into chaos. When we lose our trust, we lose our ability to know what is real. To know what truth is. I needed to ask the question “Who am I without the outside influence of culture?”
I believe that David Foster Wallace understood the trust sensor issue well when he wrote :
An ad that pretends to be art [instagram post] is-at absolute best-like somebody who smiles at you only because he wants something from you. This is dishonest, but what's insidious is the cumulative effect that such dishonesty has on us: since it offers a perfect simulacrum of goodwill without good- will's real substance, it messes with our heads and eventually starts upping our defenses even in cases of genuine smiles and real art and true goodwill. It makes us feel confused and lonely and impotent and angry and scared. it causes despair.
So yes, this is the world that we live in now. In the ‘perfect simulacrum of goodwill without good-will’s real substance’. Over time the medium has opened the door to further cultural issues, dishonesty, misinformation, inability to trust, disconnection from reality (conspiracy theories), lack of accurate sources (or lack of any sources at all), discrimination, bigotry (the targeting of groups and individuals), commerce before the well being of human beings.
I am choosing not to participate in a medium that I believe to be fueling a culture war. I am going to do it differently, because for whatever reason, I am here to rebel against the forces that seek to suck us into the void. I am here to question things, and to seek out what I believe is important, and to share my findings with others who are interested. If you read my books then you know that already. Everything that I am exists in my work.
So why did I come out of my silence to write this you might be asking? In the last couple of years it came to my attention that there is someone online who has the same name as me who is speaking quite loudly about things that go against my personal beliefs. Her voice has become louder recently and I have received emails directed to her from people who think we are the same person. We are not. I am now finding it necessary to differentiate myself from this person because I believe the kind of rhetoric that she is circulating, (of the right-wing, conservative kind) stems directly from many of the issues I am discussing above.
For the record I am not a Christian, I believe Black Lives Matter, I am an ally for LGBTQIA2S+, I recognize the privilege that settler cultures have and take for granted and I challenge and work towards breaking down those barriers that continue to violate Indigenous communities, I believe that we are in the midst of a climate crisis created by humans (one that needs immediate and drastic attention), and I acknowledge my own white privilege.
Some writers I have been reading recently:
Cornell West
Fred Moten